Bran, The Cave and The Children of the Forest

Potential Spoilers Below

Bran + Gendry = Perrin

Brandon Stark

Gendry Waters

Perrin Aybara

TWOT: What we know about Perrin

He is a blacksmith from the Two Rivers.  He is very strong and has curly brown hair.  His eyes were a deep dark brown but have changed to become bright yellow/golden; earning him the nickname “Goldeneyes”.  His eyes now glow in the dark which give him a wolfish appearance and allows him to see much further distances than a normal human.  He can also sniff out people’s emotions with his heightened sense of smell. 

“He knew that Mat, and almost everyone else in Emond's Field, considered him slow of thought. It was partly because he was big and usually moved carefully — he had always been afraid he might accidentally break something or hurt somebody, since he was so much bigger than the boys he grew up with — but he really did prefer to think things all the way through if he could. Quick thinking, careless thinking, had put Mat into hot water one time after another, and Mat's quick thinking usually managed to get Rand, or him, or both, in the cookpot alongside Mat, too.”

He has the ability to enter the Wolf Dream or Tel’aran’rhiod where he has the ability to glimpse past, present and future events.  He is known as a ta’veren, a wolfbrother,  the Wolf King and Lord of the Two Rivers.  He has the ability to speak with wolves telepathically and they refer to him as “Young Bull”.  He has a horse named Stepper.

Wolfbrother

ASOIAF: What we know about Bran

Bran is a young lordling of House Stark.  He dreamed of being a knight until he was pushed from a wall, by Jaime Lannister, after he caught him and his sister in the act of committing incest.  After his fall he fell into a deep coma where the Three-eyed crow sought him out.  After awakening from his coma he found himself constantly slipping into the body of his direwolf Summer while he slept, a condition called skinchanging or warging.  While in this state he could use the senses of his direwolf allowing him to utilize Summer's senses including sight and smell.  While not said in the books but shown on the TV show; Bran’s eyes glaze over white when he is warging.  He has a horse named Dancer.

Jaime pushes Bran

The Three-eyed crow

Summer

Bran warging

Bran riding Dancer

ASOIAF: What we know about Gendry

Gendry is the bastard son of King Robert Baratheon; but he is unaware of this.  He was a blacksmith in King’s Landing.  While an apprentice he crafted a bulls head helmet; because of this he is known as the Bull. 

King Robert

King's Landing

Bull's head helment

“Gendry was in no mood to hear it. “Quiet, both of you, I need to think what to do.” He always looked pained when he tried to think, like it hurt him something fierce.”

“She darted away, bare feet silent in the grass. When she glanced back over her shoulder, he was watching her with that pained look on his face that meant he was thinking. He’s probably thinking that he shouldn’t be letting m’lady go stealing food. Arya just knew he was going to be stupid now.”

Arya

TWOT:  The Wolves found Perrin

“They found out,” Elyas replied, “I didn't. Not at first. That's always the way of it, I understand. The wolves find you, not you them. Some people thought me touched by the Dark One, because wolves started appearing wherever I went. I suppose I thought so, too, sometimes. Most decent folk began to avoid me, and the ones who sought me out weren't the kind I wanted to know, one way or another. Then I noticed there were times when the wolves seemed to know what I was thinking, to respond to what was in my head. That was the real beginning. They were curious about me. Wolves can sense people, usually, but not like this. They were glad to find me. They say it's been a long time since they hunted with men, and when they say a long time, the feeling I get is like a cold wind howling all the way down from the First Day.”

Elyas

The Dark One

“That's very interesting,” Egwene said, and Elyas looked at her sharply. “No, I mean it. It is.” She wet her lips. “Could ... ah ... could you teach us to talk to them?”

Elyas snorted again. “It can't be taught. Some can do it, some can't. They say he can.” He pointed at Perrin.”

“Elyas was silent for a time, looking at the wolves, most often at Dapple or Burn. Perrin shifted nervously and tried not to watch. When he watched he had the feeling that he could almost hear what Elyas and the wolves were saying to one another. Even if it had nothing to do with the Power, he wanted no part of it. He had to be making some crazy joke. I can't talk to wolves. One of the wolves — Hopper, he thought — looked at him and seemed to grin. He wondered how he had put a name to him.”

Elyas, Perrin an Egwene

Dapple

Hopper

“Perrin sat wrapped in his own silence. He could feel Burn leaving. And the scarred male was not the only one; a dozen others, all young males, loped after him. He wanted to believe it was all Elyas playing on his imagination, but he could not. Just before the departing wolves faded from his mind, he felt a thought he knew came from Burn, as sharp and clear as if it were his own thought. Hatred. Hatred and the taste of blood.”

ASOIAF: The Direwolves found them

“Halfway across the bridge, Jon pulled up suddenly.

Jon Snow

“What is it, Jon?” their lord father asked.

“Can’t you hear it?”

Bran could hear the wind in the trees, the clatter of their hooves on the ironwood planks, the whimpering of his hungry pup, but Jon was listening to something else.

“There,” Jon said. He swung his horse around and galloped back across the bridge. They watched him dismount where the direwolf lay dead in the snow, watched him kneel. A moment later he was riding back to them, smiling.”

“He must have crawled away from the others,” Jon said.

“Or been driven away,” their father said, looking at the sixth pup. His fur was white, where the rest of the litter was grey. His eyes were as red as the blood of the ragged man who had died that morning. Bran thought it curious that this pup alone would have opened his eyes while the others were still blind.

Jon finds Ghost

“An albino,” Theon Greyjoy said with wry amusement. “This one will die even faster than the others.”

Theon Greyjoy

Jon Snow gave his father’s ward a long, chilling look. “I think not, Greyjoy,” he said. “This one belongs to me.”

Again, did Bran from the future call to Jon through the direwolf pup?

“Of late, he often dreamed of wolves. They are talking to me, brother to brother, he told himself when the direwolves howled. He could almost understand them . . . not quite, not truly, but almost . . . as if they were singing in a language he had once known and somehow forgotten. The Walders might be scared of them, but the Starks had wolf blood. Old Nan told him so. “Though it is stronger in some than in others,” she warned.”

Old Nan

“Warg,” said Jojen Reed.

Bran looked at him, his eyes wide. “What?”

“Warg. Shapechanger. Beastling. That is what they will call you, if they should ever hear of your wolf dreams.”

“All around her, men and boys stirred and crawled from their pallets. “What’s wrong?” Hot Pie asked. “Hear what?” Gendry wanted to know. “Arry had a bad dream,” someone else said.

Hot Pie

“No, I heard it,” she insisted. “A wolf.”

“Arry has wolves in his head,” sneered Lommy. “Let them howl,” Gerren said, “they’re out there, we’re in here.” Woth agreed. “Never saw no wolf could storm a holdfast.” Hot Pie was saying, “I never heard nothing.”

Lommy

“It was a wolf,” she shouted at them as she yanked on her second boot.

“Something’s wrong, someone’s coming, get up!”

Was Bran warging Nymeria warning Arya of trouble?

Nymeria

TWOT: Perrin rescues an Aiel from a cage

The cage hung from a thick rope tied to a ring on one of the upper bars and running through a heavy pulley on the crosspiece down to a pair of stubs, waisthigh from the bottom of the upright on either side. The excess rope lay in a careless tangle of coils at the foot of the gibbet.

Perrin looked around again, searching the dark square. He still had the feel of being watched, but he still saw nothing. He listened, and heard nothing. He smelled chimney smoke and cooking from the houses, and mansweat and old blood from the man in the cage. There was no fear scent from him.

Aiel in cage

His weight, and then there's the cage, he thought as he moved closer to the gibbet. He did not know when he had decided to do this, or even if he really had decided, but he knew he was going to do it.

Hooking a leg around the heavy upright, he heaved on the rope, hoisting the cage enough to gain a little slack. The way the rope jerked told him the man in the cage had finally moved, but he was in too much of a hurry to stop and tell him what he was doing. The slack let him unwind the rope from around the stubs. Still bracing himself with his leg around the upright, he quickly lowered the cage hand over hand to the paving blocks.

The Aiel was looking at him now, studying him silently. Perrin said nothing. When he got a good look at the cage, his mouth tightened. If a thing was made, even a thing like this, it should be made well. The entire front of the cage was a door, on rude hinges made by a hasty hand, held by a good iron lock on a chain as badly wrought as the cage. He fumbled the chain around until he found the worst link, then jammed the thick spike on his axe through it. A sharp twist of his wrist forced the link open. In seconds he separated the chain, rattled it free, and swung open the front of the cage.

Vieled Aiel

The Aiel sat there, knees yet under his chin, staring at him.

“Well?” Perrin whispered hoarsely. “I opened it, but I'm not going to bloody carry you.” He looked hastily around the nightdark square. Still nothing moved, but he still had the feel of eyes watching.

“You are strong, wetlander.” The Aiel did not move beyond working his shoulders. “It took three men to hoist me up there. And now you bring me down. Why?”

“I don't like seeing people in cages,” Perrin whispered. He wanted to go. The cage was open, and those eyes were watching. But the Aiel was not moving. If you do a thing, do it right. “Will you get out of there before somebody comes?”

The Aiel grasped the frontmost overhead bar of the cage, heaved himself out and to his feet in one motion, then half hung there, supporting himself with his grip on the bar. He would have been nearly a head taller than Perrin, standing straight. He glanced at Perrin's eyes — Perrin knew how they must shine, burnished gold in the moonlight — but he did not mention them. “I have been in there since yesterday, wetlander.” He sounded like Lan. Not that their voices or accents were anything alike, but the Aiel had that same unruffled coolness, that same calm sureness. “It will take a moment for my legs to work. I am Gaul, of the Imran sept of the Shaarad Aiel, wetlander. I am Shae'en M'taal, a Stone Dog. My water is yours.”

Gaul

Members of the Shaarad Aiel

“Well, I am Perrin Aybara. Of the Two Rivers. I'm a blacksmith.” The man was out of the cage; he could go now. Only, if anyone came along before Gaul could walk, he would be right back into the cage unless they killed him, and either way would waste Perrin's work. “If I had thought, I'd have brought a waterbottle, or a skin. Why do you call me 'wetlander'?”

Gaul gestured toward the river; even Perrin's eyes could not be sure in the moonlight, but he thought the Aiel looked uneasy for the first time. “Three days ago, I watched a girl sporting in a huge pool of water. It must have been twenty paces across. She... pulled herself out into it.” He made an awkward swimming gesture with one hand. “A brave girl. Crossing these... rivers... has nearly unmanned me. I never thought there could be such a thing as too much water, but I never thought there was so much water in the world as you wetlanders have.”

Perrin shook his head. He knew the Aiel Waste held little water — it was one of the few things he knew about the Waste or the Aiel — but he had not thought it could be scarce enough to cause this reaction. “You're a long way from home, Gaul. Why are you here?”

“We search,” Gaul said slowly. “We look for He Who Comes With the Dawn.”

Rand becoming He Who Comes With the Dawn

Perrin had heard that name before, under circumstances that made him sure who it meant. Light, it always comes back to Rand. I am tied to him like a mean horse for shoeing. “You are looking in the wrong direction, Gaul. I'm looking for him, too, and he is on his way to Tear.”

“Tear?” The Aiel sounded surprised. “Why...? But it must be. Prophecy says when the Stone of Tear falls, we will leave the Threefold Land at last.” That was the Aiel name for the Waste. “It says we will be changed, and find again what was ours, and was lost.”

The Stone of Tear

“That may be. I don't know your prophecies, Gaul. Are you about ready to leave? Somebody could come any minute.”

“It is too late to run,” Gaul said, and a deep voice shouted, “The savage is lose!” Ten or a dozen whitecloaked men came running across the square, drawing swords, their conical helmets shining in the moonlight. Children of the Light.

Children of the Light

As if he had all the time in the world, Gaul calmly lifted a dark cloth from his shoulders and wrapped it around his head, finishing with a thick black veil that hid his face except for his eyes. “Do you like to dance, Perrin Aybara?” he asked. With that, he darted away from the cage. Straight at the oncoming Whitecloaks.

For an instant they were caught by surprise, but an instant was apparently all the Aiel needed. He kicked the sword out of the grip of the first to reach him, then his stiffened hand struck like a dagger at the Whitecloak's throat, and he slid around the soldier as he fell. The next man's arm made a loud snap as Gaul broke it. He pushed that man under the feet of a third, and kicked a fourth in the face. It was like a dance, from one to the next without stopping or slowing, though the tripped fellow was climbing back to his feet, and the one with the broken arm had shifted his sword. Gaul danced on in the midst of them.

Gaul and Perrin dancing the spears

Perrin had only an amazed moment himself, for not all the Whitecloaks had put their attentions on the Aiel. Barely in time, he gripped the axe haft with both hands to block a sword thrust, swung... and wanted to cry out as the halfmoon blade tore the man's throat. But he had no time for crying out, none for regrets; more Whitecloaks followed before the first fell. He hated the gaping wounds the axe made, hated the way it chopped through mail to rend flesh beneath, split helmet and skull with almost equal ease. He hated it all. But he did not want to die.

Time seemed to compress and stretch out, both at once. His body felt as if he fought for hours, and breath rasped raw in his throat. Men seemed to move as though floating through jelly. They seemed to leap in an instant from where they started to where they fell. Sweat rolled down his face, yet he felt as cold as quenching water. He fought for his life, and he could not have said whether it lasted seconds or all night.

When he finally stood, panting and nearly stunned, looking at a dozen whitecloaked men lying on the paving blocks of the square, the moon appeared not to have moved at all. Some of the men groaned; others lay silent and still. Gaul stood among them, still veiled, still emptyhanded. Most of the men down were his work. Perrin wished they all were, and felt ashamed. The smell of blood and death was sharp and bitter.

“You do not dance the spears badly, Perrin Aybara.”

Head spinning, Perrin muttered, “I don't see how twelve men fought twenty of you and won, even if two of them are Hunters.”

“Is that what they say?” Gaul laughed softly. “Sarien and I were careless, being so long in these soft lands, and the wind was from the wrong direction, so we smelled nothing. We walked into them before we knew it. Well, Sarien is dead, and I was caged like a fool, so perhaps we paid enough. It is time for running now, wetlander. Tear; I will remember it.” At last he lowered the black veil. “May you always find water and shade, Perrin Aybara.” Turning, he ran into the night.

Perrin started to run, too, then realized he had a bloody axe in his hand Hastily he wiped the curved blade on a dead man's cloak. He's dead, burn me, and there's blood on it already. He made himself put the haft back through the loop on his belt before he broke into a trot.

At his second step he saw her, a slim shape at the edge of the square, in dark, narrow skirts. She turned to run; he could see they were divided for riding. She darted back into the street and vanished.

Lan met him before he reached the place where she had been standing. The Warder took in the cage sitting empty beneath the gibbet, the shadowed white mounds that caught the moonlight, and he tossed his head as if he were about to erupt. In a voice as tight and hard as a new wheel rim, he said, “Is this your work, blacksmith? The Light burn me! Is there anyone who can connect it to you?”

A male Warder with his color-shifting cloak

“A girl,” Perrin said. “I think she saw. I don't want you to hurt her, Lan! Plenty of others could have seen, too. There are lighted windows all around.”

The Warder grabbed Perrin's coat sleeve and gave him a push toward the inn. “I saw a girl running, but I thought... No matter. You dig the Ogier out and haul him down to the stable. After this, we need to get our horses to the docks as quickly as possible. The Light alone knows if there is a ship sailing tonight, or what I'll have to pay to hire one if there isn't. Don't ask questions, blacksmith! Do it! Run!”

Later Perrin leaves him to guard the entrance to the bore at the wolf dream. He does so along with wolves, considering them as spearbrothers. He is wounded by Slayer and saved when Perrin returns.

The Bore

ASOIAF:  Arya rescues Jaqen from a cage

Jaqen H'ghar in cage

“Good boys, kind boys,” called Jaqen H’ghar, coughing.

“Get these fucking chains off!” Rorge screamed.

Rorge

Gendry ignored them. “You go first, then her, then me. Hurry, it’s a long way.”

“When you split the firewood,” Arya remembered, “where did you leave the axe?”

“Out by the haven.” He spared a glance for the chained men. “I’d save the donkeys first. There’s no time.”

“You take her!” she yelled. “You get her out! You do it!” The fire beat at her back with hot red wings as she fled the burning barn. It felt blessedly cool outside, but men were dying all around her. She saw Koss throw down his blade to yield, and she saw them kill him where he stood. Smoke was everywhere.

There was no sign of Yoren, but the axe was where Gendry had left it, by the woodpile outside the haven. As she wrenched it free, a mailed hand grabbed her arm. Spinning, Arya drove the head of the axe hard between his legs. She never saw his face, only the dark blood seeping between the links of his hauberk. Going back into that barn was the hardest thing she ever did. Smoke was pouring out the open door like a writhing black snake, and she could hear the screams of the poor animals inside, donkeys and horses and men. She chewed her lip, and darted through the doors, crouched low where the smoke wasn’t quite so thick.

Yoren

A donkey was caught in a ring of fire, shrieking in terror and pain. She could smell the stench of burning hair. The roof was gone up too, and things were falling down, pieces of flaming wood and bits of straw and hay. Arya put a hand over her mouth and nose. She couldn’t see the wagon for the smoke, but she could still hear Biter screaming. She crawled toward the sound.

And then a wheel was looming over her. The wagon jumped and moved a half foot when Biter threw himself against his chains again. Jaqen saw her, but it was too hard to breathe, let alone talk. She threw the axe into the wagon. Rorge caught it and lifted it over his head, rivers of sooty sweat pouring down his noseless face. Arya was running, coughing.  She heard the steel crash through the old wood, and again, again. An instant later came a crack as loud as thunder, and the bottom of the wagon came ripping loose in an explosion of splinters.”

“Arya rolled headfirst into the tunnel and dropped five feet. She got dirt in her mouth but she didn’t care, the taste was fine, the taste was mud and water and worms and life. Under the earth the air was cool and dark. Above was nothing but blood and roaring red and choking smoke and the screams of dying horses. She moved her belt around so Needle would not be in her way, and began to crawl. A dozen feet down the tunnel she heard the sound, like the roar of some monstrous beast, and a cloud of hot smoke and black dust came billowing up behind her, smelling of hell. Arya held her breath and kissed the mud on the floor of the tunnel and cried. For whom, she could not say.”

Gaul stayed by Perrin’s side after they were reunited and he helped him right up to the Last Battle.  Arya and Jaqen will have that same type of relationship in my opinion.  Will Jaqen be left to guard the entrance to the cave of the three-eyed crow?

ASOIAF: Where we left Bran

When we left Bran he had entered the cave of the three-eyed crow.  He is learning to harness his abilities as a greenseer.

Cave of the Three-eyed crow

TWOT: Where does a “Cave” play an important part of the story?

“One of the forgers emerged, a thick slow moving man shape that seemed hacked out of the mountain. The forgers were not truly alive; carried any distance from Shayol Ghul, they turned to stone, or dust. Nor were they smiths as such; they made nothing but the swords. This one’s two hands held a sword blade in long tongs, a blade already quenched, pale like moonlit snow. Alive or not, the forger took care as it dipped the gleaming metal into the dark stream. Whatever semblance of life it had could be ended by the touch of that water. When the metal came out again, it was dead black. But the making was not done yet. The forger shuffled back inside, and suddenly a man’s voice raised a desperate shout.”

Shayol Ghul

“As Rand entered the cavern, something changed in the air. The Dark One only now sensed his arrival, and was surprised by it. The dagger had done its job.

Rand led the way, Nynaeve at his left, Moiraine at his right. The cavern led downward, and climbing down it lost them all of the elevation they’d gained. The passage was familiar to him, from another’s memory, from another Age.

Rand, Moiraine and Nynaeve enter the Dark One's cavern

It was as if the cavern were swallowing them, forcing them down toward the fires below. The cavern’s ceiling, jagged with fang like stalactites, seemed to lower as they walked. Inching down with each step. It didn’t move, and the cavern didn’t gradually narrow. It just changed, tall one moment, shorter the next.

The cavern was a set of jaws, slowly tightening on its prey. Rand’s head brushed the tip of a stalactite, and Nynaeve crouched down, looking upward and cursing softly.

“No,” Rand said, stopping. “I will not come to you on my knees, Shai’tan.”

The cavern rumbled. The cavern’s dark reaches seemed to press inward, pushing against Rand. He stood motionless. It was as if he were a stuck gear, and the rest of the machine strained to keep turning the hands on the clock. He held firm.

The rocks trembled, then retreated. Rand stepped forward, and released a breath as the pressure lessened. This thing he had begun could not be stopped now. Slowing strained both him and the Dark One; his adversary was caught up in this inevitability as much as he was. The Dark One didn’t exist within the Pattern, but the Pattern still affected him.”

“Beyond the figure was . . . nothing. A blackness.

“Rand,” Moiraine said, hand on his arm. “The Dark One wells up against his bonds. Do not touch that blackness.”

The figure stood and turned, Moridin’s now-familiar face reflecting Callandor's glow. Beside him on the ground lay a husk. Rand could explain it no other way. It was like the shell some insects leave behind when they grow, only it was in the shape of a man. A man with no eyes. One of the Myrddraal?

Moridin

Moridin looked to the husk, following Rand’s gaze. “A vessel my master needed no longer,” Moridin said. Saa floated in the whites of his eyes, bouncing, shaking, moving with crazed vigor. “It gave birth to what is behind me.”

“There is nothing behind you.”

Moridin raised his sword before his face in a salute. “Exactly.” Those eyes were nearly completely black.”

ASOIAF:  How did Bran enter the cave of the three-eyed crow?

“Meera said, “You speak the Common Tongue now.”

Meera Reed

“For him. The Bran boy. I was born in the time of the dragon, and for two hundred years I walked the world of men, to watch and listen and learn. I might be walking still, but my legs were sore and my heart was weary, so I turned my feet for home.”

“Two hundred years?” said Meera.

The child smiled. “Men, they are the children.”

“Do you have a name?” asked Bran.”

“When I am needing one.” She waved her torch toward the black crack in the back wall of the cave. “Our way is down. You must come with me now.”

Bran shivered again. “The ranger …”

“He cannot come.”

“They’ll kill him.”

“No. They killed him long ago. Come now. It is warmer down deep, and no one will hurt you there. He is waiting for you.”

“The three-eyed crow?” asked Meera.

“The greenseer.” And with that she was off, and they had no choice but to follow. Meera helped Bran back up onto Hodor’s back, though his basket was half-crushed and wet from melting snow. Then she slipped an arm around her brother and shouldered him back onto his feet once more. His eyes opened. “What?” he said. “Meera? Where are we?” When he saw the fire, he smiled. “I had the strangest dream.”

Bran on Hodor's back

The way was cramped and twisty, and so low that Hodor soon was crouching. Bran hunched down as best he could, but even so, the top of his head was soon scraping and bumping against the ceiling. Loose dirt crumbled at each touch and dribbled down into his eyes and hair, and once he smacked his brow on a thick white root growing from the tunnel wall, with tendrils hanging from it and spiderwebs between its fingers.

The child went in front with the torch in hand, her cloak of leaves whispering behind her, but the passage turned so much that Bran soon lost sight of her. Then the only light was what was reflected off the passage walls. After they had gone down a little, the cave divided, but the left branch was dark as pitch, so even Hodor knew to follow the moving torch to the right.

The way the shadows shifted made it seem as if the walls were moving too. Bran saw great white snakes slithering in and out of the earth around him, and his heart thumped in fear. He wondered if they had blundered into a nest of milk snakes or giant grave worms, soft and pale and squishy. Grave worms have teeth.

Hodor saw them too. “Hodor,” he whimpered, reluctant to go on. But when the girl child stopped to let them catch her, the torchlight steadied, and Bran realized that the snakes were only white roots like the one he’d hit his head on. “It’s weirwood roots,” he said. “Remember the heart tree in the godswood, Hodor? The white tree with the red leaves? A tree can’t hurt you.”

Winterfell's godswood; Ned sitting under weirwood tree

“Hodor.” Hodor plunged ahead, hurrying after the child and her torch, deeper into the earth. They passed another branching, and another, then came into an echoing cavern as large as the great hall of Winterfell, with stone teeth hanging from its ceiling and more poking up through its floor. The child in the leafy cloak wove a path through them. From time to time she stopped and waved her torch at them impatiently. This way, it seemed to say, this way, this way, faster.

Winterfell

There were more side passages after that, more chambers, and Bran heard dripping water somewhere to his right. When he looked off that way, he saw eyes looking back at them, slitted eyes that glowed bright, reflecting back the torchlight. More children, he told himself, the girl is not the only one, but Old Nan’s tale of Gendel’s children came back to him as well.

The roots were everywhere, twisting through earth and stone, closing off some passages and holding up the roofs of others. All the color is gone, Bran realized suddenly. The world was black soil and white wood. The heart tree at Winterfell had roots as thick around as a giant’s legs, but these were even thicker. And Bran had never seen so many of them. There must be a whole grove of weirwoods growing up above us.

The light dwindled again. Small as she was, the child-who-was-not-a-child moved quickly when she wanted. As Hodor thumped after her, something crunched beneath his feet. His halt was so sudden that Meera and Jojen almost slammed into his back.

“Bones,” said Bran. “It’s bones.” The floor of the passage was littered with the bones of birds and beasts. But there were other bones as well, big ones that must have come from giants and small ones that could have been from children. On either side of them, in niches carved from the stone, skulls looked down on them. Bran saw a bear skull and a wolf skull, half a dozen human skulls and near as many giants. All the rest were small, queerly formed. Children of the forest. The roots had grown in and around and through them, every one. A few had ravens perched atop them, watching them pass with bright black eyes.

The last part of their dark journey was the steepest. Hodor made the final descent on his arse, bumping and sliding downward in a clatter of broken bones, loose dirt, and pebbles. The girl child was waiting for them, standing on one end of a natural bridge above a yawning chasm. Down below in the darkness, Bran heard the sound of rushing water. An underground river.”

“I’m here,” Bran said, “only I’m broken. Will you … will you fix me … my legs, I mean?”

“No,” said the pale lord. “That is beyond my powers.”

Bran’s eyes filled with tears. We came such a long way. The chamber echoed to the sound of the black river.

“You will never walk again, Bran,” the pale lips promised, “but you will fly.”

“Under the hill they still had food to eat. A hundred kinds of mushrooms grew down here. Blind white fish swam in the black river, but they tasted just as good as fish with eyes once you cooked them up.”

Because Bran is unaware of what is happening he enters the cave crouching unlike what Rand did. Where the dark stream in TWOT was death to touch the black river in ASOIAF offered up sustenance or life in the form of fish.

TWOT: A vessel my master needed no longer

Shaidar Haran or Super Fade as known to fans of the book. Shaidar Haran means "Hand of the Dark" in the Old Tongue.

Shaidar Haran

It looks like a Myrddraal except that it is much taller and it appears to have a sense of humor.

It appears to have the ability to deny channelers their ability to touch the True Source.

He is an intermediary between the Forsaken and the Dark One.  He speaks with the Dark One's voice and even the Forsaken have to obey him.

The Forsaken

Ultimately however, Shaidar Haran appears to have been acting as something of an incubator for bringing an infinitesimal portion of the Dark One's own essence into the Pattern. During Rand's assault on Shayol Ghul, it is implied by Moridin that Shaidar Haran had served as a vessel for a patch of what appeared to be absolute nothingness that was seen hovering behind a Myrddraal's corpse. Touching this nothingness evidently allowed one's consciousness to interact directly with the Dark One, drawing the individual into a realm outside the Pattern where it could be directly viewed in a metaphysical sense.

The 7 spoked wheel of time weaving the universe

ASOIAF: Who is Shaidar Haran’s counterpart?

Coldhands is a mysterious figure from beyond the Wall. He looks like a wight and has hands black from pooled and congealed blood, but is intelligent and seemingly benign.

Coldhands

The Wall

A Wight

My personal theory about Coldhands is that he is a former brother of the Night’s Watch known/created by Bran when he goes into the past and changes his own present/future of which he is currently unaware as he hasn’t reached that point in his development/training.  I think that after the three-eyed crow dies Bran takes his place and becomes “The Last greenseer” but not actually as I will discuss this later.  Where Shaidar Haran was the “Hand of the Dark”, I believe Coldhands to be “Bran’s Hands.”  I believe that it is Bran that has Coldhands place the dragonglass and horn wrapped in the cloak of a black brother for Jon to find.  The following excerpt is where I draw some of my conclusions:

Men of the Night's Watch

“Meera’s gloved hand tightened around the shaft of her frog spear.

“Who sent you? Who is this three-eyed crow?”

“A friend. Dreamer, wizard, call him what you will. The last greenseer.” The longhall’s wooden door banged open. Outside, the night wind howled, bleak and black. The trees were full of ravens, screaming. Coldhands did not move.

“A monster,” Bran said.

The ranger looked at Bran as if the rest of them did not exist. “Your monster, Brandon Stark.”

“Yours,” the raven echoed, from his shoulder. Outside the door, the ravens in the trees took up the cry, until the night wood echoed to the murderer’s song of “Yours, yours, yours.”

“Jojen, did you dream this?”

“Meera asked her brother. “Who is he? What is he? What do we do now?”

“We go with the ranger,” said Jojen. “We have come too far to turn back now, Meera. We would never make it back to the Wall alive. We go with Bran’s monster, or we die.”

Coldhands saves Samwell Tarly, Gilly and her son when they are beset by wights, lost in the haunted forest after fleeing Craster's Keep, addressing Sam as "Brother!" He takes the two under his protection and brings them to the Black Gate of the Nightfort located underneath the Wall. He cannot pass through himself, due to the Wall's magic, but he charges them to bring Bran Stark and his companions whom Coldhands is expecting. He looks and talks as if he was a ranger of the Night's Watch.

Gilly, Sam and her baby

The Haunted Forest

Craster's Keep

Sam standing before the Black Gate
Any Brother who says his vows before this gate will make it open

Coldhands guides Bran Stark, Hodor, Meera and Jojen Reed to the last greenseer north of the Wall. Along the way he kills men of the Night's Watch. Bran, having slipped into Summer as a warg, discovers this and confronts him in the abandoned village. They discover that Coldhands is indeed dead, but he continues to refuse to show his face. Unknown to Bran is that the men Coldhands killed were the surviving traitors responsible for the mutiny at Craster's Keep.  When his great elk collapses along their journey, Coldhands whispers a blessing in an unknown language and slits the animal's throat; he and Meera butcher the carcass for food.

Coldhands leads Bran and his companions to the cave of the three-eyed crow, but he cannot enter. He fights off wights as they climb to the cave entrance.

TWOT: What was said about the Creator’s Champion?

“More, he avowed that the Great Lord would almost as soon have turned Lews Therin to the Shadow as have broken free. Maybe Ishamael had been a little mad then, too, but there had been efforts to turn Lews Therin. And Ishamael said that it had happened in the past, the Creator’s champion made a creature of the Shadow and raised up as the Shadow’s champion.”

Lews Therin

ASOIAF: Who is really the Light’s Champion(s) this time around?

First of all I believe that the three-eyed crow is a pawn in this age.  He seems to have bought hook line and sinker that he is the last greenseer.  I believe we have been shown that he is not.  Read the following excerpt and follow my reasoning:

“Where are the rest of you?” Bran asked Leaf, once.

Leaf

“Gone down into the earth,” she answered. “Into the stones, into the trees. Before the First Men came all this land that you call Westeros was home to us, yet even in those days we were few. The gods gave us long lives but not great numbers, lest we overrun the world as deer will overrun a wood where there are no wolves to hunt them. That was in the dawn of days, when our sun was rising. Now it sinks, and this is our long dwindling. The giants are almost gone as well, they who were our bane and our brothers. The great lions of the western hills have been slain, the unicorns are all but gone, the mammoths down to a few hundred. The direwolves will outlast us all, but their time will come as well. In the world that men have made, there is no room for them, or us.”

The First Men at war with the COTF

A Giant working

A giant riding a mammoth

She seemed sad when she said it, and that made Bran sad as well. It was only later that he thought, Men would not be sad. Men would be wroth. Men would hate and swear a bloody vengeance. The singers sing sad songs, where men would fight and kill.”

“As Hodor he explored the caves. He found chambers full of bones, shafts that plunged deep into the earth, a place where the skeletons of gigantic bats hung upside down from the ceiling. He even crossed the slender stone bridge that arched over the abyss and discovered more passages and chambers on the far side. One was full of singers, enthroned like Brynden in nests of weirwood roots that wove under and through and around their bodies. Most of them looked dead to him, but as he crossed in front of them their eyes would open and follow the light of his torch, and one of them opened and closed a wrinkled mouth as if he were trying to speak. “Hodor,” Bran said to him, and he felt the real Hodor stir down in his pit.”

So Bran found a chamber full of singers (Children of the Forest) who were enthroned like Brynden.  What does that mean?  I believe that they are also greenseers but somehow they have shielded themselves from the gaze of “The Last Greenseer” Brynden, the three-eyed crow. 

So if this is the case what is their goal?  I believe Maester Luwin summed it up best while dying when he said “White Harbor . . . the Umbers . . . I do not know . . . war everywhere . . . each man against his neighbor, and winter coming . . . such folly, such black mad folly . . .”  I believe that this is their way of fighting back and killing the way Bran said men would behave if fighting eradication.  I believe that they have been using religions and visions to get men to fight each other.  In my opinion it seems to be working as right now men are fighting each other in the name of their “gods” to the point it is about to start a world war.

Maester Luwin and Osha

I believe it is the COTF that have been showing visions to people like Melisandre in her fires, Dany as she traveled the House of the Undying, the prophecies given to Cersei about herself, her children and finally her death and countless others who have viewed fragments of the future in some form or fashion.  I believe that they show true visions but only enough to get target of the vision to do what they want them to do.  The ultimate outcome however will not be what the seer believes as I think the COTF see an outcome where men will be wiped from the face of their world.  

TWOT: Perrin and Faile

Perrin and Faile

“He picked her out immediately. For one thing, she stood apart from the others, and for another she was the only woman in the room not wearing at least a little lace. Her dark gray, almost black, dress was as plain as the ship captains' clothes, with wide sleeves and narrow skirts, and never a frill or stitch of fancywork. The dress was divided for riding, he saw when she moved, and she wore soft boots that peeked out under the hem.

She was young — no older than he was, perhaps — and tall for a woman, with black hair to her shoulders. A nose that just missed being too large and too bold, a generous mouth, high cheekbones, and dark, slightly tilted eyes. He could not quite decide whether she was beautiful or not.

As soon as he looked down, she turned to address one of the serving women and did not glance at the stairs again, but he was sure he had been right. She had been staring at him.”

“Perrin lost himself in the work, for a time forgetting everything but the heat of the metal, the ring of his hammer, and the smell of the forge, but there came a time when he looked up and found the smith — Dermid Ajala, he had said his name was — taking off his vest, and the shoeing yard dark. All the light came from the forge and a pair of lamps. And Zarine was sitting on an anvil by one of the cold forges, watching him.

“So you really are a blacksmith, blacksmith,” she said.

“He is that, mistress,” Ajala said. “Apprentice, he says, but the work he did today amounts to his master's piece as far as I am concerned. Fine stroking, and better than steady.” Perrin shifted his feet at the compliments, and the smith grinned at him. Zarine stared at both of them with a lack of comprehension.

Perrin went to replace the vest and apron on their peg, but once he had them off, he was suddenly conscious of Zarine's eyes on his back. It was if she were touching him; for a moment, the herbal scent of her seemed overwhelming. He quickly pulled his shirt over his head, stuffed it raggedly into his breeches, and jerked on his coat. When he turned around, Zarine wore one of those small, secretive smiles that had always made him nervous.”

ASOIAF: Who will be Bran’s Faile?

Meera and Bran

“The girl caught him staring at her and smiled. Bran blushed and looked away.”

“Meera began to cry.

Bran hated being crippled then. “Don’t cry,” he said. He wanted to put his arms around her, hold her tight the way his mother used to hold him back at Winterfell when he’d hurt himself. She was right there, only a few feet from him, but so far out of reach it might have been a hundred leagues. To touch her he would need to pull himself along the ground with his hands, dragging his legs behind him. The floor was rough and uneven, and it would be slow going, full of scrapes and bumps. I could put on Hodor’s skin, he thought. Hodor could hold her and pat her on the back. The thought made Bran feel strange, but he was still thinking it when Meera bolted from the fire, back out into the darkness of the tunnels. He heard her steps recede until there was nothing but the voices of the singers.”

Where Perrin caught Faile staring at him it was just the opposite with Bran and Meera.

ASOIAF: Who will be Gendry’s Faile?

Arya and Gendry

“Arya took the paper and ran. The armory adjoined the castle smithy, a long high-roofed tunnel of a building with twenty forges built into its walls and long stone water troughs for tempering the steel. Half of the forges were at work when she entered. The walls rang with the sound of hammers, and burly men in leather aprons stood sweating in the sullen heat as they bent over bellows and anvils. When she spied Gendry, his bare chest was slick with sweat, but the blue eyes under the heavy black hair had the stubborn look she remembered. Arya didn’t know that she even wanted to talk to him. It was his fault they’d all been caught. “Which one is Lucan?” She thrust out the paper. “I’m to get a new sword for Ser Lyonel.”

“As she passed the armory, Arya heard the ring of a hammer. A deep orange glow shone through the high windows. She climbed to the roof and peeked down. Gendry was beating out a breastplate. When he worked, nothing existed for him but metal, bellows, fire. The hammer was like part of his arm. She watched the play of muscles in his chest and listened to the steel music he made. He’s strong, she thought. As he took up the long-handled tongs to dip the breastplate into the quenching trough, Arya slithered through the window and leapt down to the floor beside him.”

“Riverrun.” Gendry put the hammer down and looked at her. “You look different now. Like a proper little girl.”

“I look like an oak tree, with all these stupid acorns.”

“Nice, though. A nice oak tree.” He stepped closer, and sniffed at her. “You even smell nice for a change.”

“You don’t. You stink.” Arya shoved him back against the anvil and made to run, but Gendry caught her arm. She stuck a foot between his legs and tripped him, but he yanked her down with him, and they rolled across the floor of the smithy. He was very strong, but she was quicker. Every time he tried to hold her still she wriggled free and punched him. Gendry only laughed at the blows, which made her mad. He finally caught both her wrists in one hand and started to tickle her with the other, so Arya slammed her knee between his legs, and wrenched free. Both of them were covered in dirt, and one sleeve was torn on her stupid acorn dress. “I bet I don’t look so nice now,” she shouted.”

“An old man sat down beside her. “Well, aren’t you a pretty little peach?” His breath smelled near as foul as the dead men in the cages, and his little pig eyes were crawling up and down her. “Does my sweet peach have a name?”

For half a heartbeat she forgot who she was supposed to be. She wasn’t any peach, but she couldn’t be Arya Stark either, not here with some smelly drunk she did not know. “I’m . . .”

“She’s my sister.” Gendry put a heavy hand on the old man’s shoulder, and squeezed. “Leave her be.”

The man turned, spoiling for a quarrel, but when he saw Gendry’s size he thought better of it. “Your sister, is she? What kind of brother are you? I’d never bring no sister of mine to the Peach, that I wouldn’t.” He got up from the bench and moved off muttering, in search of a new friend.

“Why did you say that?” Arya hopped to her feet. “You’re not my brother.”

“That’s right,” he said angrily. “I’m too bloody lowborn to be kin to m’lady high.” Arya was taken aback by the fury in his voice. “That’s not the way I meant it.”

“Yes it is.” He sat down on the bench, cradling a cup of wine between his hands. “Go away. I want to drink this wine in peace. Then maybe I’ll go find that black-haired girl and ring her bell for her.”

“But . . .”

“I said, go away. M’lady.”

Arya whirled and left him there. A stupid bullheaded bastard boy, that’s all he is. He could ring all the bells he wanted, it was nothing to her.

It isn’t hard to see that Gendry and Arya have a thing for each other.  This just jumped out to me in light of TWOT.

TWOT: Perrin has an epiphany

“Is it possible," Perrin said, "to run on four legs, but not come here too strongly?"  Of course it is, Hopper sent, laughing after the way of wolves—as if what Perrin had discovered was the most obvious thing in the world.  Maybe it was.  Perhaps he wasn't like the wolves because he was a wolfbrother. Perhaps he was a wolfbrother because he was like the wolves. He didn't need to control them. He needed to control himself.

“How did you do it?" Perrin asked, rising.

I am me. Hopper as he saw himself—which was identical to who he was. Also scents of strength and stability.

The trick, it seemed, was to be in complete control of who you were. Like many things in the wolf dream, the strength of one's mental image was more powerful than the substance of the world itself.

Come, Hopper sent. Be strong, pass through.”

ASOIAF:What Bran will discover

“And who is Summer?” Jojen prompted.

“My direwolf.” He smiled. “Prince of the green.”

“Bran the boy and Summer the wolf. You are two, then?”

“Two,” he sighed, “and one.” He hated Jojen when he got stupid like this. At Winterfell he wanted me to dream my wolf dreams, and now that I know how he’s always calling me back.

“Remember that, Bran. Remember yourself, or the wolf will consume you. When you join, it is not enough to run and hunt and howl in Summer’s skin.”

It is for me, Bran thought. He liked Summer’s skin better than his own. What good is it to be a skinchanger if you can’t wear the skin you like?

“Will you remember? And next time, mark the tree. Any tree, it doesn’t matter, so long as you do it.”

“I will. I’ll remember. I could go back and do it now, if you like. I won’t forget this time.” But I’ll eat my deer first, and fight with those little wolves some more.

Jojen shook his head. “No. Best stay, and eat. With your own mouth. A warg cannot live on what his beast consumes.”

How would you know? Bran thought resentfully. You’ve never been a warg, you don’t know what it’s like.”

Bran will learn the lesson Perrin learned in reverse.  Perrin was afraid to embrace becoming a wolf; where that is all Bran wanted to do.  Perrin learned that he only needed to control himself; the same lesson that Bran will also discover.

In TWOT within Tel'aran'rhiod it is possible to be whoever you want to be in appearance.  Nothing is impossible if your focus is clear.  This is what Bran will realize also and when he appears in the "green dream" as himself he will once again be able to walk and climb as he could before he lost the use of his legs.

TWOT: Perrin harnesses his abilities

“The woman cursed again as the paper she was reading vanished. Then she looked up.

Perrin’s reaction was immediate. He created a paper-thin wall between her and him, her side painted with an exact replica of the landscape behind him, his side transparent. She looked right at him, but didn’t see him, and turned away.

Beside him, Gaul let out a very soft breath of relief. How did I do that? Perrin thought. It wasn’t something he had practiced; it had merely seemed right.”

“You are strong here,” Gaul said thoughtfully. “Very strong. Do the Wise Ones know of this?”

Amys, Bair & Melaine 
The Dosh Khaleen are the Wise One Equivalent

“I’m still a pup compared to them,” Perrin said.”

“Mat stood there. He was fighting against himself, a dozen different men wearing his face, all dressed in different types of fine clothing. Mat spun his spear, and never saw the shadowy figure creeping behind him, bearing a bloody knife.” 

“Mat!" Perrin cried, but he knew it was meaningless. This thing he was seeing, it was some kind of dream or vision of the future. It had been some time since he'd seen one of these.”

“The veil between worlds was very thin here. If he could see Nynaeve and Moiraine, perhaps they could see or hear him.

He stepped up to Nynaeve. “Nynaeve? Can you hear me?”

She blinked, turning her head. Yes, she could hear him! But she could not see him, it seemed. She searched about, confused as she clung to the stone teeth of the floor as if for life itself.

“Nynaeve!” Perrin yelled.

“Perrin?” she whispered, looking about. “Where are you?”

“I’m going to do something, Nynaeve,” he said. “I will make it impossible to create gateways into this place. If you want to Travel to or from this area, you’ll need to create your gateway out in front of the cavern. All right?”

She nodded, still looking about for him. Apparently, though the real world reflected in the wolf dream, it didn’t work the other way around. Perrin rammed the dreamspike into the ground, then activated it as Lanfear had shown him, creating the bubble of purple just around the cavern itself. He hurried back into the tunnel, emerging through a wall of purple glass to rejoin Gaul and the wolves.”

Lanfear

Lanfear

Lanfear

The Night's King corpse queen

I believe she was ASOIAF's version of Lanfear.  Lanfear was known as "The Daughter of the Night" and "moonhunter" by the wolves.  The corpse queen was descibed as "with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars"; The things associated with the Night.  I believe she sought out the Night's King under the direction of the COTF

ASOIAF Bran will harness his abilities

“Bran closed his eyes and slipped free of his skin. Into the roots, he thought. Into the weirwood. Become the tree. For an instant he could see the cavern in its black mantle, could hear the river rushing by below.”

“Then all at once he was back home again.

Lord Eddard Stark sat upon a rock beside the deep black pool in the godswood, the pale roots of the heart tree twisting around him like an old man’s gnarled arms. The greatsword Ice lay across Lord Eddard’s lap, and he was cleaning the blade with an oilcloth.

Ned Stark

“Winterfell,” Bran whispered.

His father looked up. “Who’s there?” he asked, turning …  … and Bran, frightened, pulled away. His father and the black pool and the godswood faded and were gone and he was back in the cavern, the pale thick roots of his weirwood throne cradling his limbs as a mother does a child. A torch flared to life before him.

Bran in weirwood throne

“Tell us what you saw.” From far away Leaf looked almost a girl, no older than Bran or one of his sisters, but close at hand she seemed far older. She claimed to have seen two hundred years.

Bran’s throat was very dry. He swallowed. “Winterfell. I was back in Winterfell. I saw my father. He’s not dead, he’s not, I saw him, he’s back at Winterfell, he’s still alive.”

“No,” said Leaf. “He is gone, boy. Do not seek to call him back from death.”

“I saw him.” Bran could feel rough wood pressing against one cheek. “He was cleaning Ice.”

“You saw what you wished to see. Your heart yearns for your father and your home, so that is what you saw.”

“A man must know how to look before he can hope to see,” said Lord Brynden. “Those were shadows of days past that you saw, Bran.”

“You were looking through the eyes of the heart tree in your godswood. Time is different for a tree than for a man. Sun and soil and water, these are the things a weirwood understands, not days and years and centuries. For men, time is a river. We are trapped in its flow, hurtling from past to present, always in the same direction. The lives of trees are different. They root and grow and die in one place, and that river does not move them. The oak is the acorn, the acorn is the oak. And the weirwood … a thousand human years are a moment to a weirwood, and through such gates you and I may gaze into the past.”

“But,” said Bran, “he heard me.”

“He heard a whisper on the wind, a rustling amongst the leaves. You cannot speak to him, try as you might. I know. I have my own ghosts, Bran. A brother that I loved, a brother that I hated, a woman I desired. Through the trees, I see them still, but no word of mine has ever reached them. The past remains the past. We can learn from it, but we cannot change it.”

I believe that what the three-eyed crow said to Bran is true for him.  Bran however is much stronger than he knows and this will begin to manifest itself as he progresses.  Bran will also see things that he isn't meant to see about the COTF and will start putting things together and learn to conceal it from them and they have been doing from the three-eyed crow.

TWOT: Why Aes Sedai generally don’t get married

The Tower Library was the largest in the known world, containing copies of almost every book that had ever been printed, but this was unsuitable for a novice. Accepted were granted a little leeway—by that time, you knew that you would watch a husband age and die, and your children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, while you changed not at all—but novices were quietly discouraged from thinking about men or love, and kept away from men entirely.

The White Tower Library
The Citadel Library is the ASOIAF equivalent

ASOIAF: Old Nan may be a crossover from TWOT world

“I hate your stupid stories.”

The old woman smiled at him toothlessly. “My stories? No, my little lord, not mine. The stories are, before me and after me, before you too.”

She was a very ugly old woman, Bran thought spitefully; shrunken and wrinkled, almost blind, too weak to climb stairs, with only a few wisps of white hair left to cover a mottled pink scalp. No one really knew how old she was, but his father said she’d been called Old Nan even when he was a boy. She was the oldest person in Winterfell for certain, maybe the oldest person in the Seven Kingdoms. Nan had come to the castle as a wet nurse for a Brandon Stark whose mother had died birthing him. He had been an older brother of Lord Rickard, Bran’s grandfather, or perhaps a younger brother, or a brother to Lord Rickard’s father. Sometimes Old Nan told it one way and sometimes another. In all the stories the little boy died at three of a summer chill, but Old Nan stayed on at Winterfell with her own children. She had lost both her sons to the war when King Robert won the throne, and her grandson was killed on the walls of Pyke during Balon Greyjoy’s rebellion. Her daughters had long ago married and moved away and died. All that was left of her own blood was Hodor, the simpleminded giant who worked in the stables, but Old Nan just lived on and on, doing her needlework and telling her stories.

“I don’t care whose stories they are,” Bran told her, “I hate them.” He didn’t want stories and he didn’t want Old Nan. He wanted his mother and father. He wanted to go running with Summer loping beside him. He wanted to climb the broken tower and feed corn to the crows. He wanted to ride his pony again with his brothers. He wanted it to be the way it had”

The one thing I never understood was Old Nan telling Bran that her stories were “before you too”.  Why did she say that?  For all intents and purposes she is older than Bran so why would she need to say that?  I believe that she knows who Bran actually is.  Her description is that of an Aes Sedai when it comes to her long life.  Hodor is her great grandson.

If Old Nan were a crossover character she would be Cadsuane.  Cadsuane is a character within TWOT who is considered to be dead but just when an adventure is about to happen she pops up.  Also at the end of TWOT Cadsuane had been chosen to be the new Amyrlin Seat.  I think she would have hated that position with a passion.  I believe she removed her oaths and took refuge in the ASOIAF world.

Cadsuane

ASOIAF: Bran’s abilities will go beyond the three-eyed crow

Bran like Perrin is going to move beyond those whom he thought masters of their abilities.  He will be able to go back and forwards and interact and participate in events from any time.  That is how I believe that Coldhands will come into being.  I also believe that the events throughout the books where animals did something that seemed improbable that it was Bran warging them to make events play out as they did (i.e.  the crow that jumped out of the pot that made Jon Snow Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, Ghost finding the dragonglass and the Horn of Winter wrapped in a cloak of a brother of the Night’s Watch etc.)  I also believe that he was/will be shown to be some/all of the famous Bran’s throughout their history (i.e. Brandon the Builder, Brandon the Shipwright, Brandon the Burner, Brandon the Bad etc.)

Dragonglass & the Horn of Winter? wrapped in a cloak of a black brother

Brandon the Builder

Brandon the Burner

ASOIAF: One good turn deserves another

I don’t know if Tyrion will know it or not but I believe that Bran will look in on him and most likely warg the dragon Viserion and assist him with gaining control and being able to fly.  He will do this because of how Tyrion helped him to ride a horse again.  I think that Bran will be curious about the dragons and when he sees that Tyrion is not able to ride he will feel the need to help him as he was once helped.

Viserion

Tyrion

TWOT: Perrin formulates a plan

“There was one way to deal with them for certain. A careful trap using the Asha'man and Wise Ones, and Perrin could hit the Children so hard that they shattered. He could maybe even destroy them permanently as a group.

Asha'men using the One Power

He had the means, the opportunity, and the motivation. No more fear in the land, no more Whitecloak mock trials.”

ASOIAF: Bran see’s the truth and starts putting together his plan

I believe that the “Singers” that are enthroned like “the three-eyed crow” are allowing him only to see what they want him to see.  I believe that Bran because of how strong he is as a greenseer will be able to move beyond their ability to obstruct him in the same way.  He will be able to turn the tables on them and blind them to what he is actually doing and seeing.  His ability to shield himself from their gaze will serve a similar purpose as the dagger that Rand used to shield himself while entering the cavern of the Dark One. 

Where Perrin didn’t destroy the Children of the Light or Whitecloaks but saved them from the Trollic attack; Bran will do the opposite with the Children of the Forest.  He will put together a plan most likely involving the Night’s Watch, the Dosh Khaleen and maybe Jon Snow to eliminate them once and for all.   

TWOT: Perrin creates a power-wrought weapon

“Perrin took several of those lengths of steel and set them into coals. This Forge wasn’t as nice as what he was accustomed to; though he had a bellows and three barrels for quenching, the wind cooled the metal, and the coals didn't get as hot as he'd like. He watched with dissatisfaction.

"I can help you with that, Lord Perrin," Neald
said from the side.

"Heat the metal up, if you want."

Perrin eyed him, then nodded. He plucked out a length of steel, holding it up with his tongs. "I want it a nice yellow-red. Not so hot it goes white, mind you."

Neald nodded. Perrin set the bar on the anvil, took out his hammer and began to pound again. Neald stood at the side, concentrating.

Perrin lost himself in the work. Forge the steel. All else faded. The rhythmic pounding of hammer on metal, like the beating of his heart, That shimmering metal, warm and dangerous. In that focus, he found clarity. The world was cracking, breaking further each day. It needed help, right now. Once a thing shattered, you couldn't put it back together.

"Neald," Grady's voice said. It was urgent, but distant to Perrin. "Neald, what are you doing?"

"I don't know," Neald replied. "It feels right."

Perrin continued to pound, harder and harder. He folded the metal, flattening pieces against one another. It was wonderful the way the Asha'man kept it at exactly the right temperature. That freed Perrin from needing to rely on only a few moments of perfect temperature between heatings.

The metal seemed to flow, almost as if shaped by his will alone. What was he making? He took the other two lengths out of the flames, then began to switch between the three. The first—and largest—he folded upon itself, molding it, using a process known as shrinking where he increased its girth. He made it into a large ball, then added more steel to it until it was nearly as large as a man's head. The second he drew, making it long and thin, then folded it into a narrow rod. The final, smallest piece he flattened.

He breathed in and out, his lungs working like bellows. His sweat was like the quenching waters. His arms were like the anvil. He was the forge.

"Wise Ones, I need a circle," Neald said urgently. "Now. Don't argue! I need it!"

Sparks began to fly as Perrin pounded. Larger showers with each blow. He felt something leaking from him, as if each blow infused the metal with his own strength, and also his own feelings. Both worries and hopes. These flowed from him into the three unwrought pieces.

The world was dying. He couldn't save it. That was Rand's job. Perrin just wanted to go back to his simple life, didn't he?

"No. No, he wanted Faile, he wanted complexity. He wanted life. He couldn't hide, any more than the people who followed him could hide.

He didn't want their allegiance. But he had it. How would he feel if someone else took command, and then got them killed?

Blow after blow. Sprays of sparks. Too many, as if he were pounding against a bucket of molten liquid. Sparks splashed in the air, exploding from his hammer, flying as high as treetops and spreading tens of paces. The people watching withdrew, all save the Asha'man and Wise Ones, who stood gathered around Neald.

I don't want to lead them, Perrin thought. But if I don't, who will? If I abandon them, and they fall, then it will be my fault.

Perrin saw now what he was making, what he'd been trying to make all along. He worked the largest lump into a brick shape. The long piece became a rod, thick as three fingers. The flat piece became a capping bracket, a piece of metal to wrap around the head and join it to the shaft.

A hammer. He was making a hammer. These were the parts.

He understood now.

He grew to his task. Blow after blow. Those beats were so loud. Each blow seemed to shake the ground around him, rattling tents.”

“Perrin exulted. He knew what he was making. He finally knew what he was making.

He hadn't asked to become a leader, but did that absolve him of responsibility? People needed him. The world needed him. And, with an understanding that cooled in him like molten rock forming into a shape, he realized that he wanted to lead.

If someone had to be lord of these people, he wanted to do it himself. Because doing it yourself was the only way to see that it was done right.

He used his chisel and rod, shaping a hole through the center of the hammer's head, then grabbed the haft and—raising it far over his head— slammed it down into place. He took the bracket and laid the hammer on it, then shaped it. Mere moments ago, this process had fed off his anger. But now it seemed to draw forth his resolution, his determination.

Metal was something alive. Every blacksmith knew this. Once you heated it, while you worked it, it lived. He took his hammer and chisel and began to shape patterns, ridges, modifications. Waves of sparks flew from him, the ringing of his hammer ever stronger, ever louder, pealing like bells. He used his chisel on a small chunk of steel to form a shape, then placed it down on top of the hammer.

With a roar, he raised his old hammer one last time over his head and beat it down on the new one, imprinting the ornamentation upon the side of the hammer. A leaping wolf.

Perrin lowered his tools. On the anvil—still glowing with an inner heat—-was a beautiful hammer. A work beyond anything he'd ever created, or thought that he might create. It had a thick, powerful head, like a maul or sledge, but the back was formed cross-face and flattened. Like a blacksmith's tool. It was four feet from bottom to top, maybe longer, an enormous size for a hammer of this type.”

“The haft was all of steel, something he'd never seen on a hammer before. Perrin picked it up; he was able to lift it with one hand, but barely. It was heavy. Solid.

Perrin forging a power wrought hammer

The ornamentation was of a Crosshatch pattern with the leaping wolf stamped on one side. It looked like Hopper. Perrin touched it with a callused thumb, and the metal quieted. It still felt warm to the touch, but did not burn him.

He turned to look, and was amazed at the size of the crowd watching him. The Two Rivers men stood at the front, Jori Congar, Azi al'Thone, Wil al'Seen and hundreds more. Ghealdanin, Cairhienin, Andorans, Mayeners. Watching, quiet. The ground around Perrin was blackened from the falling sparks; drops of silvery metal spread out from him like a sunburst.

Neald fell to his knees, panting, his face coated with sweat. Grady and the women of the circle sat down, looking exhausted. All six Wise Ones had joined in. What had they done?

Perrin felt exhausted, as if all of his strength and emotion had been forged into the metal. But he could not rest. "Wil. Weeks ago, I gave you an order. Burn the banners that bore the wolf-head. Did you obey? Did you burn every one?"

Wil al'Seen met his eyes, then looked down, ashamed. "Lord Perrin, I tried. But. . . Light, I couldn't do it. I kept one. The one I'd helped sew."

"Fetch it, Wil," Perrin said. His own voice sounded like steel.

Wil ran, smelling frightened. He returned shortly, bearing a folded cloth, white with a red border. Perrin took it, then held it in a reverent hand, hammer in the other. He looked at the crowd. Faile was there, hands clasped before her. She smelled hopeful. She could see into him. She knew.

"I have tried to send you away," Perrin announced to the crowd. "You would not go. I have failings. You must know this. If we march to war, I will not be able to protect you all. I will make mistakes."

He looked across the crowd, meeting the eyes of those who stood there. Each man or woman he looked at nodded silently. No regrets, no hesitations. They nodded.

Perrin took a deep breath. "If you wish this, I will accept your oaths. I will lead you."

They cheered him. An enormous roar of excitement. "Goldeneyes. Goldeneyes the wolf! To the Last Battle! Tai'shar Manetheren!"

"Wil!" Perrin bellowed, holding up the banner. "Raise this banner high. Don't take it down again until the Last Battle has been won. I march beneath the sign of the wolf. The rest of you, rouse the camp. Get every soldier ready to fight. We have another task tonight!"

The young man took the banner and unfurled it, Jori and Azi joining him and holding it so it didn't touch the ground. They raised it high, running to get a pole. The group broke up, men running this way and that, shouting the summons.

Perrin took Faile by the hand as she walked up to him. She smelled satisfied. "That's it, then?"

"No more complaining," he promised. "I don't like it. But I don't like killing, either. I'll do what must be done." He looked down at the anvil, blackened from his work. His old hammer, now worn and dented, lay across it. He felt sad to leave it, but he had made his decision.

"What did you do, Neald?" he asked as the Asha'man—still looking pale__- stumbled up to his feet. Perrin raised the new hammer, showing the magnificent work.

"I don't know, my Lord," Neald said. "It just . . . well, it was like I said. It felt right. I saw what to do, how to put the weaves into the metal itself. It seemed to draw them in, like an ocean drinking in the water of a stream." He blushed, as if he thought it a foolish figure of speech.

"That sounds right," Perrin said. "It needs a name, this hammer. Do you know much of the Old Tongue?”

“No, my Lord."

Perrin looked at the wolf imprinted on the side. "Does anyone know how you say 'He who soars'?"

"I ... I don't . . ."

"Mah'alleinir" Berelain said, stepping up from where she'd been watching.

"Mah'alleinir" Perrin repeated. "It feels right. Sulin? What of the White-cloaks?"

Sulin

"They have made camp, Perrin Aybara," the Maiden replied.

Aiel Maiden's

"Show me," he said, gesturing to Arganda's map.

She pointed out the location: a piece of land on the side of a hill, heights running to the north of it, roadway coming in from the northeast, wrapping around the south of the heights—following the ancient riverbed—and then bending southward when it hit the campsite by the hill. From there, the road headed toward Lugard, but the campsite was protected from wind on two sides. It was a perfect campsite, but also a perfect place for an ambush. The one Arganda and Gallenne had pointed out.

He looked at that passageway and campsite, thinking of what had happened the last few weeks. We met travelers. . . . said that the muds to the north were almost completely impassable with wagons or carts . . .

A flock of sheep, running before the pack into the jaws of a beast. Faile and the others, walking toward a cliff. Light!

"Grady, Neald," Perrin said. "I'm going to need another gateway, Can you manage?"

"I think so," Neald said. "Just give us a few minutes to catch our breath."

"Very well. Position it here." Perrin pointed to the heights above the Whitecloaks' camp. "Gaul!" As usual, the Aiel man waited nearby He loped up. "I want you to go speak with Dannil, Arganda, Gallenne. I want the entire army to cross through as quickly as possible, but they are to keep quiet. We move with as much stealth as an army this size can manage.”

“Gaul nodded, running off. Gallenne was still nearby; Gaul started by speaking with him.

Faile watched Perrin, smelling curious and a little anxious. "What are you planning, husband?"

"It's time for me to lead," Perrin said. He looked one last time at his old hammer, and laid fingers on its haft. Then he hefted Mah'alleinir to his shoulder and strode away, feet crackling on drops of hardened steel.

The tool he left behind was the hammer of a simple blacksmith. That person would always be part of Perrin, but he could no longer afford to let him lead.

From now on, he would carry the hammer of a king.

Faile ran her fingers across the anvil as Perrin strode away, calling further orders to prepare the army.

Did he realize how he'd looked, standing amid those showers of sparks, each blow of his hammer causing the steel before him to pulse and flare to life? His golden eyes had blazed as brightly as the steel; each peal of the hammer had been nearly deafening.

"It has been many centuries since this land has seen the creation of a Power-wrought weapon," Berelain said. Most others had left to follow Perrin's orders, and the two were alone, save for Gallenne standing nearby and studying the map while rubbing his chin. "It is a strong Talent the young man just displayed. This will be of use. Perrin's army will have Power-wrought blades to strengthen them."

"The process seemed very draining," Faile said. "Even if Neald can repeat what he did, I doubt we will have time to make many weapons."

"Every small advantage helps," Berelain said. "This army your husband has forged, it will be something incredible. Ta'veren is at work here. He gathers men, and they learn with amazing speed and skill."

ASOIAF: Gendry will learn to work Valyrian Steel

This one is easy to see in my eyes.  Gendry is going to learn to forge Valyrian steel.  I also believe that Thoros of Myr will be Gendry’s Neald.  I believe Thoros will be able to recreate the spells required to forge valyrian steel.  Like Perrin, Gendry will also create a warhammer like that of his father King Robert.  Gendry will carry his warhammer and be able to wield it like Robert once had.

Where Perrin roused men to fight for him I don't think Gendry will do this in ASOIAF.  I believe it will be Arya who will do this as they will most like at this point in the story be promised to one another.  Arya will not be the typical fiance as she will be like Princes Nymeria and her aunt Lyanna.

Thoros of Myr

TWOT:  Unknown prophecies

“We know of their prophecies, but they will never know all of ours."

"But this . . ." she said, rereading the passage. "This says Aybara will die!"  "There can be many interpretations of any prophecy," Moridin said. "But yes. This Foretelling promises that Aybara will die by our hand. You will bring me the head of this wolf, Graendal. And when you do, anything you ask shall be yours." He slapped the book closed. "But mark me. Fail, and you will lose what you have gained. And much more.

Foretelling that the Dragon would be reborn

ASOIAF: What the Children of the Forest have seen

I believe that the COTF have seen visions of Bran Stark dead and will use Littlefinger as their medium to bring it to fruition.  What they won’t know is how much Bran has evolved with his abilities that will most likely surpass even them.

Littlefinger

It was said in TWOT “We know of their prophecies, but they will never know all of ours." I believe this to be a very fitting quote when it comes to the COTF. They know of "their prophecies" because they gave them to them in the first place.

TWOT: Achilles heel left at the cave

“Nynaeve reached the woman. She was chained to the wall. “Alanna?” Nynaeve shouted over the wind. “Light, what are you doing here?”

Alanna

The Aes Sedai blinked reddened eyes at Nynaeve. Her eyes stared dully, as if she had no mind. As Nynaeve examined the woman, she noticed that the entire left side of Alanna’s body was bloodied from a knife wound to the gut. Light! Nynaeve should have known that from the paleness of the woman’s face.

Why stab her and leave her here? She bonded Rand, Nynaeve realized. Oh, Light. It was a trap. Moridin had left Alanna bleeding, then confronted Rand. When Alanna died, Rand—as her Warder—would be driven mad with rage, making him easy for Moridin to destroy.”

“In all of those moments, in all of those places, Perrin’s hammer struck and Young Bull’s fangs grabbed Slayer by the neck. He tasted the salty warmth of Slayer’s blood in his mouth. He felt the hammer vibrate as it hit, and he heard bones crack. The worlds flashed like bolts of lightning.

Everything crashed, shook, then pulled together.

Perrin stood on the rocks in the valley of Thakan’dar, and Slayer’s body crumpled in front of him, head crushed. Perrin panted, the thrill of the hunt clinging to him. It was over.”

ASOIAF: Who will be Bran’s Achilles heel?

Of course it will be Meera.  Moridin was there from the very beginning trying to bring down Rand.  Who was there from the beginning trying to take down the Starks?  I would have to say I believe that person will be Littlefinger.  I believe he has been a pawn of the Children of the Forest from the very start.  He will still be doing their bidding at the end also.

I see Littlefinger getting someone to bring Meera to the cave and injuring her while Bran is otherwise engaged with the COTF.  But Bran will be able to multitask and see who is ultimately responsible for causing injury to Meera.  The assassin that Littlefinger hires will wound Meera but not mortally and draw his full attention from the COTF to give them an edge.  The assassin will move in and then kill Bran’s body fulfilling the prophecy of his death.  Meera will lay on the cave floor slowly dying when Littlefinger enters the cave.  He approaches the assassin and then Littlefinger slashes his throat, to cover his tracks, with the valyrian steel dagger that was once used in the attempt to kill Bran.  He will then move on to the part of the cave where the singers reside.  The remaining COTF enthroned in the weirwoods will begin to tell Littlefinger of his reward for helping them in their plans when they suddenly are surprised and scream “NOOOOO! How can this be?”  Littlefinger uses the dagger and starts killing them one by one and somehow they are unable to stop him using their abilities.  The scene will shift back to the part of the cave where Bran’s broken body lies limp sitting on his weirwood throne.  A red priestess will be in the cave treating Meera’s wounds.  The priestess steps back and Littlefinger approaches her body.  He cradles the body and brushes her cheek and she opens her eyes and looks over at Bran’s lifeless body.  He helps her to her feet.  Summer approaches the cave and approaches Littlefinger and licks his hand.  Littlefinger says something that only Bran has said to Meera and she throws her arms around him finally realizing that it is Bran and not Littlefinger.  Meera asks him what they will do now.  Bran says he has always wanted to see Greywater Watch as they walk hand in hand on their way out of the cave. 

Littlefinger's Valyrian Steel Dagger

So it is Bran that will do to Littlefinger what Rand al’Thor does to Moridin at the end by warging Littlefinger’s body.  Where Perrin killed Slayer it will be a 180 in ASOIAF.  Bran's body will die but he will take the body of Littlefinger and live out the rest of his life with Meera as the man who "killed him".  Bran's bones will be taken back to Winterfell and buried in the crypts.

Comments encouraged.  Love to hear the idea’s of others.  Most believe that since I present my idea’s as “fact like” I’m not open to change my viewpoints which is far from the truth.  I simply look at the information presented and go from there.  If you can shine a light on another way of thinking that opens the door to debate.